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“Maybe you should go on home too.”
“I have two clients and then I will. I promise. Is this person coming after me and Josiah?”
“I don’t know. But he’s definitely out to give me grief.” Ty blew out of the office and the building with a whirlwind of thoughts and no time to process. Outside, he scanned the area for the unknown caller. Then he stopped dead in his tracks.
Josiah sat on the wooden stairs with his phone in his lap.
“Hey.” He wasn’t sure how to act. This was his son. “Aren’t you supposed to be heading home instead of the arcade?” Did he lie concerning his whereabouts often? Ty let his gaze circle the area again. Nothing out of place. A blue car zipped past, and someone walked across the street toward a coffee shop.
Josiah stood. “I didn’t want my mom to know I needed to talk to you.” He rubbed his hands on his back pockets. “You said if I thought of something to let you know, and I did.”
“Okay, you can tell me.” He held up a finger. “But give me one second.” He bounded down the stairs, and Violet opened her window.
“What’s going on?” she asked, before returning her sights to Josiah on the stairs, his dark curls whipping in the wind, reminding Ty of one of those blow-up creatures used at car dealerships.
Ty gave her the CliffsNotes version of the phone call, omitting anything personal. “Have you seen anyone suspicious or a vehicle?”
She shook her head. “A few cars passed but nothing to give me pause.” She glanced across the street. “He could be in any of those shops.”
Ty didn’t see anyone, but an icy sensation gripped his ribs and raised hairs on his neck. His gut warned they were being watched. “The kid wants to talk to me. Give me a second.” He raced to the stairs. “Okay, what is it you didn’t want your mom to know?”
“My mom doesn’t know this because she gets all up in our grill—me and Ahnah—when she’s not traveling. Although she’s gone pretty much all the time.”
“She’s probably in your business because that’s what moms do.”
“Whatever, man.” He rolled his eyes. “There was a guy that dated Ahnah’s friend. Amy-Rose. His name is Skipper. I mean, I doubt that’s his real name, but no one calls him by anything else. I was hanging out at the arcade waiting on Ahnah to get off work one night and ran out of money, so I was in the store killing time. He came in, but Amy-Rose had dumped him. He was being all stalkerish. The manager asked him to leave, and at first he wouldn’t, but then Ahnah told him if he didn’t, she’d call the cops. He pretty much cussed her out, then told her she better watch her back and Amy-Rose too.”
Skipper. Shouldn’t be hard to track down someone with a nickname like that in this small town. If he was from here. He’d talk to the manager, who might know more.
“You seen him around since Amy-Rose or Ahnah disappeared?” Ty asked.
“No. But I could draw him for you. I’m pretty good at portraits.”
Ty smiled, but it hurt. One more thing Josiah had inherited. Ty could draw, but portraits were never his strong suit. His early plans had been to study architecture, then go into the family business of construction and real estate development and marry Bex. But plans changed when Garrick pulled his cruel stunt by asking for Bexley’s hand in marriage. And their plans to run failed. Everything swirled down the can. “Yeah? You want to be an artist?”
“Nah.” He tossed him a crooked grin that mirrored Ty’s. “I want to play video games on YouTube and get rich. But I’ll probably do something with the art. Maybe...teach, or like, I don’t know. My mom says I’d make a great architect. I have the talent, and they make good money.”
“She said that, huh?” She’d encouraged their son to follow in the footsteps of his father yet withheld his existence.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I’ll draw him. My sketch pad is at home right now, though. My mom says I need to go home due to the case. Are we in trouble?”
Ty needed the boy to be alert but not afraid. Right now, he knew little to nothing. The man on the phone said he was watching Josiah. Ty saw no one. Not a single person even in their car. He’d lied to scare him. Hadn’t he? He never actually said where Josiah was to prove his claim.
“Be cautious. Be careful. I’ll be by later to get it. Okay?”
“You got a card or something? My mom is blowing off the stuff at the house as her forgetting, but after Ahnah, I don’t know. My gut says something else.”
“Go with the gut.” He laid a hand on Josiah’s bony shoulder. Moisture burned in his eyes, and he rushed to conceal his emotion with his sunglasses. “It’s usually right.” He gave him a solid pat, then handed him the card. “I’ll be by around dinnertime.”
“Cool.” He strolled toward an old Honda, then turned, walking backwards. “Hey, is that, like, your partner in that Suburban?”
“Yeah,” Ty said warily. What had Violet done to him? She was unpredictable.
“She’s hot.” He grinned as he hopped inside his car.
Ty found he could chuckle. “That hot one would burn you alive, bruh.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t mind going down in flames.”
